I watched television news on several New Zealand channels frequently during the recent Israeli blitzkrieg on Gaza, and also during Israel’s even more devastating Operation Cast Lead four years ago. I can not recall one commentator—whether from the BBC, ITV, the American networks, the Australian networks or the NZ networks—ever saying “an Israeli jet delivers its payload on Gaza. The people of Gaza have NO SUCH FIREPOWER.”

This radical victim-wards tilt by Sky News is sudden, and encouraging. Can we now look forward to similar reporting, sympathetic to the civilians being bombed rather than the aggressors, when Sky News next sends a report from the Occupied Territories and Gaza?

Pop – Who are you trying to kid here? Unless you are a complete moron, you know damn well that news broadcasts are seldom, if ever, so perfectly “impartial” – whatever side of the fence you are on. Do not tell me what the news coverage “should” be, this world does not (fortunately) run according to “should’s” (or by “ideals”) Where there is clear evidence of an atrocity, evidently you would prefer that no hint of sympathy be demonstrated for the victims? No, let’s be “impartially” cold-blooded!

If I have got you wrong, please clarify yourself, I have no desire to inflict an injustice upon you.

Well yes – I would like the news to be impartial and something to be desired. Morrissey’s wording is quite specific – he’s creaming his panties that sympathies are shifting in the opposite direction. I prefer my data cold-blooded because then I can at least work out for myself where my sympathies lie.

Does it occur to you that news should be impartial and not sympathetic to anyone?

It certainly has occurred to me, as you would realize if you had actually read my post.

Do you have topics of interest other than the perfidity of the Jews?

The “perfidity of the Jews”? All of my criticisms are of the leaders and the armed forces of a rogue state; bizarrely and no doubt cynically you accuse me of some medieval confessional campaign. Some of the worst depradations carried out by IDF troops are in fact committed by Bedouin Arab recruits; if you had been aware of that, no doubt you would have exercised your grand sarcasm and accused me of worrying unduly about the “perfidity of the Bedouins”. Or would that not fit with your cunning plan of accusing me, and any other critics of the Holy State, of anti-Semitism?

Like, oh, I dunno, New Zealand politics?

I urge you to take a look at my oeuvre of the last two years on this excellent site, then I challenge you to say with a straight face that I show no interest in New Zealand politics.

Let’s recap. Your header: “Sky News policy change: now sympathetic to victims, not aggressors” – very leading, manipulative and makes you sound as bad as the MSM. How about just saying “Sky News reporting now more balanced”? Less hysterical Pilcher on crack, no?

And going back over your posts of the last few weeks it’s mostly attacks on Israel (often justified, but kind of obvious – I’d be very surprised if anyone on The Standard WASN’T aware of the bullshit Israel gets up to) and these bizarre attacks on comedians of Jewish ancestry and/or faith. I’m surprised you’ve left Woody Allen and Sarah Silverman untouched so far.

Still with this attempt to insinuate I’m having a go at “the Jews”. Unless you are an imbecile, you will realize that I criticize ideologues, including comedians, who attack the weak, the poor, the vulnerable and the officially despised. If you had read my transcript of Baron Cohen’s obscene performance on the Letterman show, you would have seen I was just as critical of Letterman and his halfwitted audience.

“Unless you are an imbecile, you will realize that I criticize ideologues, including comedians, who attack the weak, the poor, the vulnerable and the officially despised.”

Citation (still) needed. All you’ve done so far is attack Sacha Baron Cohen for being Jewish, Moz. You have yet to provide any evidence that SBC is a zionist, let alone a ‘shill’ for Israel. Face it, pal, you’re a bigot. You’re young though and you may mature with some life experience under your belt. I genuinely hope thats the case, because you show glimmers of understanding from time to time, which is encouraging.

“You might not agree with Morrissey, but he is on the money with his contentions about the *entertainment industry*, but a serious blockage will not allow you to accept what is blatant!”

What contentions about the *entertainment industry* (oh the snobbery that reeks of) – it might surprise you to know that Hollywood etc isn’t a secret cabal run by Zionist Jews – unless you’re some sort of paranoid bigot conspiracy theorist.

So you and Morrissey can put down your well-thumbed copies of Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf and back away from them slowly.

Belated seasons greetings to everyone at TS and the very best for 2013. AND a big thank you to lprent and everyone else who makes TS a daily must even if I don’t comment. BUT will be today haviing just caught up with some of the newer posts!

Here’s a comment from what is obviously a really f**king sick mind, i found it by linking into one of the comments listed in the little box over to the right which shows who commnented where, and am commenting here because i can’t find the post in which this comment occurred,

”Just because SOME private armies have done BAD things is no reason to have an idealogical opposition to all Private armies, we should judge them on outcomes.” unquote,

The link of course takes you straight to ‘kiwiblog’ and the words in capitals are my doing,

Really??? just because some of these private armies have done ‘bad things’, you know minor transgressions like murder,rape and pillaging???

There’s one hell of a lot of human suffering inherent in a ‘private army doing bad things’ that the sick little puppy over at kiwiblog brushes aside as simply bad things….

Looks like original comment has been removed (?) although it is quoted below:

Yoza (240) Says:
December 28th, 2012 at 10:29 am

“I disagree. Just because some private mercenary armies have done bad things, is no reason to have an ideological opposition to all private mercenary armies”

Mercenaries are vermin and one of the very few reasons the use death penalty could be justified. This is just another nail in Shearer’s coffin, no sane person could justify the use of killers for hire and continue to lead a charade masquerading as a viable progressive alternative to the current bunch of corporate facilitators whom we have currently managing the population.

From news reports on RadioNZ National it appears that pepper spray was deployed first as an attempt to control one or all of the drunken teens,

It just so happens that ‘a child’,no age was given, also received a face full of pepper spray AND THEN the place went really mad,(i wonder if the female wielding the brick was the child’s mother),

What the Police Association seems to be saying is that if all officers were armed with fire-arms they could have after spraying a child with pepper spray by-passed the use of tasers and gone straight to the use of fire-arms,

Hell if they can justify shooting an innocent motorist on an Auckland motorway justifying the shooting of a drunken mob would be a breeze…

Yeah, aren’t tasers supposed to replace using a gun, if they were not ever going to use a gun on a family in their own home, then…

…but to be fair, the taser was taken from the police officer (???after their head had been bashed and so when a gun was acceptable to be used).

How about this. If police are to be attacked by fists then police can use a baton, if police are to be attacked by knives, then they should be armed, if police are to use tasers because???? Tasers break the skin, they cause people to lose balance and harm themselves, they can not be used in high places, even the use on hard surfaces can cause excessive harm from bad falls, they even are know to cause cardic arrest in people with pace makers, and cause highly anxiousness mental patients to die. They complicate policing since the public doesn’t know what mood the police are in and so what form of control they are going to use. Like pepper spray on children???

Policing takes time, we should not be freeing up police and ignoring the risk of more aggressive policing, or at best more adverse results like the above. Police seen as the enemy in not good for public order.

listen while we play our Green Tambourine
‘taint no big thing, the toll of the bell
love is the drug and we need to score
For Whom? follow the lemmingway
The Power and The Glory:Ever met a Quiet American?
failing hopes, over the cliff they go

Infant Formula Mongolia outta Waitake?
the human is a biped quadrabikes continue to roll over
trapped in their crushed cage
more pods cast on beaches Sea Shepherd harpooned
(i’ll straighten up soon guys, limited budget to critique right back at ya’ ;))

Julia Deans Banshee Reel (Fiona’s gone to cruise control, took a body blow)
Ahhh, Maggie Death
(if i should fall from Grace with God return to the garden)
Don’t wanna be a flatfish gasping shallow water

“ya can’t always get what ya want, but if ya try some times, ya just might find
You get what you need”

we were livin’ off the bone, rollin pin scones
they’ll be down at Kellys pawn shop number nine
(the stench of spirits on their breath)
bruises on my flesh set me heading for The Doors
well you took my love and you set on a ship
the bodies come floating back to me…

Morning Song
from The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion-B.C
New Zealand Aotearoa is a small village
we need a remedy not Sometimes Salvation
who needs sugar when you’ve got guarana
Time Will Tell.Late at night when the lights are low
She slips off her stockings and shoes
Keep your eyes wide open and your hands upon the Wheel
hit him in the Roadhouse Julie.remember Sandra Lees’ time?
Hopeless Romantics. Promise You Anything including
a Dagger Through The Heart-John Daniel
Key’s a crawlin’ king snake and he only rules “his” world-John Lee
“This Is Hip”; can’t recall, The Ghost of Tom Joad
Galveston oh Galveston I am Lineman
You’ve got to try a little kindness, show a little kindness
Shine your light for every one to see
they took turns at Becky; watch the last Act fall
Star of the County Down and fuzzy.

Anchorage, Alaska, or Justice in Ontario?
they asked for water; exxon gave them gasoline.
Now, it’s Big Red Sun Blues.

a pistol is the Devils’ Right Hand
the devils right hand, the devils right hand.

Rock, Salt and Nails comes before Dirty Water
cos i’m whaling, out on the sea
step inside The Everlasting Grace. Stand Inside Your Love
of Raindrops and Sunshowers.The Sacred and Profane
Machina of the gods.

it’s Still, So Early in The Spring smelt The Blacksmith
watching Lassie Gathering Nuts. E Minstra;
if love was a train i think i’d ride me a slow one
but the L i N don’t run to Gizzy any more
Katipo Widow. hourglass lice.

Prior to Maddy there was Gaudette
Come ye o’er France, we want more of the same
for Wild is The Wind. They Can’t Take That Away
from the Cotton Tail, Keeper of The Flame;
Nina, sultry ballerina, or Ella: Scott Fitzgerald?

you know that it would be untrue
you know that i would be a liar
if i was to say to you The Standard couldn’t get much higher
-A Day is a Thousand Comments: A Thousand Comments is A Day
Watch and Learn; Draco is a Shaman and felix (viper) keeps on killing
Thanks Tim. Our Love Is Hear To Stay.
Somethings Gotta Give
Set The Controls For The Heart of The Son
(careful with that axe) John Bunyan
“I cum for ma’ boy”. amerikan eugenics Marion
The Secret? don’t need a saucer!

Foolish Games-The Grass is Blue
He will be waiting; I AM Ready, Are you?
(when i get this feeling, i can’t help myself)
it’s always cold inside the Icehouse, though the rivers never freeze
(they all die young on the Boulevard)
see the wreckage All Lined Up
must be something in the
Atmosphere. Halos and Horns?

and he says in another place
“You are a priest forever,
In the order of Melchizedek,
because of your reverent submission”
(although He was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered)
hence, death shall have no dominion or pizza.

“The diatribe perplexed most people in the pews. For Ruth, it felt more personal. She is Catholic and gay, a reminder that both are the broadest of churches. She is also director of public affairs at the pressure group Stonewall, so deeply embroiled in the struggle for equal rights. “For me, God is love,” she says. “So why do I have to justify my very right to exist?” She was not alone in having to endure priests using their sermons to spout prejudice. For this was the year an insecure Church, confronted by an increasingly secular country, celebrated Christmas by lashing out in ways that only served to demonstrate its own demons and display its impotence.

One befuddled bishop conjured up the spirit of Hitler by comparing the Coalition’s intention to legalise gay marriage to the ideology of fascism. In so doing, he exposed the most basic rule of debate: when you resort to bringing in the Nazis, you have obviously lost the argument.”

Well Hitler declared himself Catholic, and most Germans were christian at that time. So it would be half right, if your argument was that opposition to gay marriage might have links to fascist ideology; because homosexuals were murdered in the holocaust. But the bishop isn’t saying that, instead the reverse i.e. arguing that homosexuality was fascist, and that anyone that opposes the bishop’s hateful and bitter version of Christianity is a ‘Nazi’. *yawn*

Has anyone read the article on Stuff which headlines ‘Judge critical of Talley’s request’
Talley’s wanted a $10.000 security payment for costs against an ex-employee fighting
for her fish processing job,she had worked there for 10yrs.
The judge dismissed Talley’s application for the security payment and ordered it to
contribute $750 towards the employees costs of defending “This unmeritorious application”
(Judges words)
I say good on Judge Colgan, top marks.
Sorry i can’t link.

DPS “blow” more than the their budget (them NAct cats sure are scaredy); Leon filled me in on the
Detail, just a little. Still Glocks?

maybe this govt shoulda sat up straight in class and listened to the Educational Experts;
anticipate more canings to come (along with smoking in the toilets)

Human hand “evolved for fighting” argues another science priest;
try a little open-handed gesture, or prayer: Meanwhile, back in the jungle out there,
Family violence in NZ is still on the increase, reports local “Shadbolt”

joe-Gerry only reached 83, sigh, 90 would have been more FAB (thats me) BIG RAT.

many of the elderly and disabled are still in “grim limbo” following the SandStorm
see how far removed the US is from “civilisation”?

Return of the Ottomans?-above Syria, Iraq, to the Left of Iran, and comparitively stable on the table.

anyway,
seems the sun always shines on t.v, yet not today at the queens park aslide to Splash Planet
scattered showers to continue; sorry folks, not much helium remains but plenty of methane

Talking Heads-“Warning Signs of things to come” so we may as well throw our arms around
each other, Hunt and Collect.

my agenda? if any of you fellow worker bees wanna chip in and lend a carpenter a hand
is to research these clowns thoroughly in the new year
then
rip them limb from limb til’ it’s their “blood on the floor” some more
and
i’ll do it for a kennel, chow and the odd cannon bone or ball thrown in
no pointer being backwards going forwards, english or german;
all’s fair in Love and politics
Boom! (how much is that labradoodle in the window Steven? gotta Speer?)

Robert Gordon of Northwestern University argues that the technological progress of the past 250 years could be a unique historical episode. He cites falling productivity levels and rising inequality as evidence that living standards are no longer improving as quickly. My colleague Martin Wolf shares some of these concerns, asking in an October column whether unlimited growth may be a thing of the past.

A novel interpretation of this trend is starting to gain credibility among some economists: it is not that technology is stagnating but that monopoly interests are suppressing innovation. And the incentives for them to do so are increasing.

Put a different way, companies have an interest in sabotaging progress and efficiency because not doing so could lead to the sort of abundance that might make it impossible to monetise anything. After all, how can you mark up manna that falls from heaven?

The inevitable consequence of increasing productivity is that, eventually, there will be not enough demand to meet supply. IMO, the developed nations (such as those in the OECD) pretty much passed that state many decades ago which is why we have seen a rise in services and products that are, essentially, useless as well as the majority of people having to work more.

Good award to J-A.G bad one two; check out her resume, she’s hot (in a helpful way)
lightweight Ardern is Flockie (is that fly-strike? wotta dagg)
Crimson Nile flows a pathway to the promised land
don’t bother with Muffin s anymore even though you all ate them for breakfast,
they are colonial imports anyway UK or US
fender you are in the stratosphere casting at all times of the tide
solidarnosc to our Warsaw friend
some great bubbles floating about the spectrum
great MO; getting physical there at times
what a vivacious femme fatale

don’t give up on decyphering; it’s all in there. I chequed mate

keep dropping these E-tablets xtsy; they prove to be therapeutic and we’re only making plans for
Generals and Majors as Postman Bill always delivers. you sure are a trooper karol
(if you don’t mind the lariot)
keep sprinkling that saltpeter. Hi Hilary, Huggin right back at ya.
the die is cast Ripley.
What a buzza muzza; sawing right through at different lengths and depths
always Nick S the threads, maybe reads the tea leaves.

I’m Red through and thrown back again. Do we really want to play in the mud and throw pies
(It’s not always about “the leader” or his corpulent, addicted side-kick; It was Heydrich the
Allies made a concerted play for) He had the real “will”. D.C will be read again.Watch this frame.

J’Accuse’s a Rock Star. Oh Vienna-Ultravox Ian;reminds me of Orange Crush and the sound of
Hueys.
savage as always michael (can’t hide those wings behind pulp fiction suits)
On point Rhino tough-hided thing you.Some more creative writing ready to penetrate the plains?
I often forget our tangata whenua colleagues; we can be blind to our biases, i know.

yet, lots of absolutism guff being uttered freely.

Oh well (limb from limb was metaphoric) but I have always thought a “researcher” would be an
Apt application for a dogged Calvary man like me.

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This week it was my privilege to work with Sri Lankan Tamil communities in this country and host Australian journalist and human rights advocate Trevor Grant. I knew a bit about Trevor from his biography but I didn’t know just… ...

The Government is about to progress the final stages of the Animal Welfare Amendment bill. This will be our last opportunity to get changes made to improve the bill to ensure a better outcome for animals. I have put forwards… ...

Access to buildings is a big issue for many New Zealanders. It looks like that, due to the hard work and persistence of people in the disability community, the Government may finally be starting to take access to buildings seriously.… ...

The Green Party today called on the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (the Fund) to divest from fossil fuels, starting immediately with coal. The call was accompanied with a new report, Making money from a climate catastrophe: The case for divesting… ...

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